For a troubled heart, there is no relief;
For a wild encounter, no dressing of grief–
Only watching and waiting, suspecting the worst.
The king was a pauper, the blessèd were cursed
In a little-lamb town near the skirts of the bay—
The place where you wandered in the heat of the day.
The villagers say they saw you in tears,
The countrymen claim you’ve been missing for years,
Trapped, as it were, in the trappings of doubt–
A bloom of near-darkness, a sinner devout–
The things of this world were falling away.
The best you could do was kneel and pray.
But why spend your toil when no one would hear?
And why waste your hours in trembling and fear?
When the person you called on was never at home
And the lover you leaned on was lost in his dome—
Aloft in a tower, aloof of the cries
Of the woman who wails, the child who sighs.
A simpler man might find it half-strange
To live in a house so crudely arranged.
But who are the voices that people your head?
And what are the longings that call you instead?
Young hearts are beating, the day-book is read,
The soldiers are dancing, the dogs have been fed.
“Now, listen, o God, I’m dying to know
What songs I’ve been singing, what seeds I should sow!
My patience, o Lord: a light growing dim.
I’m losing the will— —to follow Him.”